Bob Sacamento

What a difference a year makes, not only did the squad reporting to this years 2014 Florida Instructional League look much different than last year but so did the newly renovated facility. When entering the new Player Academy, you're greeted by a large hill that was constructed for new strength exercises and a sign stating "This is Twin Territory" and a 12 ft picture of Kirby Puckett and the quote "And we'll see you tomorrow night!" Around the corner are more signage showing the Twins past success and telling everyone "The Road Begins Here". While waiting around, I was able to find the iteneriery for this past Thursday. Further down is the brand new three story housing unit and office for the Players' Developmental Academy, and let me tell you the Twins did this right. That is except for the marked up rates they charge the players for simple things such as contact solution. Don't tell but I sweet talked my way into the first floor unit and it was nice, furnished with ping-pong tables, pool tables, conference rooms and offices. The walls are decorated with blown up old school Twin baseball cards and ESPN magazine covers while Baseball America magazines strewn about with the MLB network playing on flatscreen TVs. The players live on the second and third floor and are roomed with a teammate unless they have family and they are housed together. The best part of this experience is that I'm the only "regular" person out there with all these players, coaches and trainers. With the 10am game cancelled due to wet conditions, the day started off as a fizzle and I was honestly about to leave but who do I see come out of the Academy Complex but Bryon Buxton and the rest of the Instructional League squad. Buxton was the first player out and has definitely hardened over the last two years that I've seen him in that he doesn't like the chit chat or pictures or autographs as much as when he was fresh out of a small Georgian high school. Following Buxton were the rest of the Instructional League positional players minus Nick Gordon while the pitchers stayed behind in the Complex listening to a Rasmussen speech and watching video. At 9:30am the position players reported to what they loving refer to as "The Hill". At first glance it doesn't appear ominious but if you talk to any player out there they hated it by the end. The first player taken was Miguel Guzman and boy can he fly while the catchers were all near the end of the picking process with Alex Swim getting the notorious last pick and crying about it. Kanzler ended up with Rainis Silvia, Jorge Fernandez, Nelson Molina, Trey Vavra, Tanner English,Tyree Davis, Rafael Valera and Stu Turner. , before deciding on slow-fast-slow with his placement of runners and picking Rainis Silvia to go first which Rainis was pleading not to do. Jorge Fernandez is quiet the character, very verbal with encouragement, quick wit and always cracking a joke. I said that I wasn't impressed with last year's strength and conditioning regime well this time around leadman Eric Beiser pulled out a great drill. First the players foot tapped the box 10x each foot then hit the ladder, followed by the medicine ball which they threw laterally to each side 6x times. The race was then to the sandpit (think long jump placement) where they ran halfway down then backwards with running forward-back-forward full length. After that was slamming the medicine ball 6x down then running up the 45 degree hill "duck walking" with tubing, Then off to 10 3 count burpees that many players turned into 5 count (including pushup), that was followed by reverse duck walk, 30 second plank, side shuffle, sprint up the hill, 10 second side planks, side shuffle down the hill, jumps up the hill, backwards lunges down the hill, and a sprint up the hill for the finish. Tommy Watkins, the FIL manager, loves giving his players crap, riding them hard, most of the players thought he was joking when he said we're hitting after this but he was serious. , , Believe it or not, this drill killed several of the players with three of them puking (Zack Larson, Tyree Davis and Brian Navarreto). much like Navarreto while Davis had to be carried off by Rainis Silvia and Nelson Molina with Jorge Fernandez fanning him off. Tyree told me, I never had to do this even in football, they said you work every muscle but I only feel it here (quadriceps), I know what I'm doing this offseason (pointing to the hill), I've never had to workout like this before. Buxton just stood on the sidelines and watched as he's nowhere near in-shape, he's only hitting in the the cage at this point. Tyler Kuresa asked Buxton if he had done this drill before which Byron replied yeah but I was in shape then which is a complete lie because "the hill" is a new feature to the complex. , thus making Kanzler group having to hit second and clean-up the hill and collect balls in the cage. While the positional players were finishing up with their drill, the pitchers came out at about 1030am, many of the positionals asked if the pitchers had to do the same drill which was replied with an emphatic NO by the pitchers (Michael Cederoth and CK Irby). To which Tyler Kuresa replied back, "gotta work on covering first today"? Eric Rassmussen asked Field Coordinator Joe Lepel if he had two catchers that weren't tanked so . Of course that was after the pitchers played catch and long toss for 20 minutes. After JT Chagois finished I was able to call him over and get him to talk briefly about his recovery processs and . According to JT, the arm is feeling the best it has in a long time but he's having trouble with his location and command. He says he doesn't know how hard he's throwing which I'm sure was a lie, but according to a source he was 96-98mph in his last outing. He's throwing mainly fastballs at this point and that's all he threw in his side session. The source I talked to said they plan to take it slow with JT with him possibly starting off in extended spring training and/or Fort Myers and see from there. From my perspective Chagois seems like a genuinely nice kid and I wish him the best of luck but don't think he needs too much because that ball just explodes out of his hand. The pitchers then reported off to the inside arena while the hitters continued to hit in the cages, the rain started to come and I departed. Hopefully next week the rain subsides enough to get a game in when I'll be back the 27th. I hope you enjoyed the ramblings of a baseball fan. *I have no affiliation with any club, organization, company, etc the above blog is just one baseball fan's look inside the not often covered Florida Instructional League.

There are definitely some good players in Camp (Meyer, Stewart, Eades, Gonsalves, Wimmers). But last year's crop at Instructionals was just amazing: Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano, Eddie Rosario, and Kyle Gibson.

Tibs you have no idea, it was a blast! Especially when you consider that I was the only regular person there everyone else was with the Twins or Kia Tigers organization. So if you're someone who likes to get autographs or pictures/video it's extremely easy.

I've got alot more footage, mainly of Alex Meyer and Alex Wimmers in side sessions but figured you guys would have a fill from the ones I already had posted.

During this process, the Red team pitchers were taking infield drills and how to be ready after releasing the pitch. Coach Henry Bonilla was directing the action here and apparently plays in the same fantasy football team as Ethan Mildren, 2013 12th rounder RHP, and took it out on him for not accepting a lopsided trade by hitting his dribbler over the fence and into the parking lot. It was quite comical to see. [video=youtube_share;mAaYs2JQNfc] By this time, it was 11am and the players broke for lunch which is provided for them if they desire. They returned to the field at 12:15 for a practice squad game of Red vs Blue team. There was no score being kept, balls/strikes/outs were subjective as was a lineup; it was a 3 inning game give or take. Throwing in the game was Meyer, Wimmers and Irby for the Blue team and Yorman Landa, Stephen Gonsalves, and Luke Bard for the Red team. Other notes that were made during my Instructional League visit: pitchers Kohl Stewart (1st Rd 2013), Ethan Mildren (13th Rd 2013), and Aaron Slegers (5th Rd 2013) are pretty close in terms of friendship on the squad. Apparently, Grand Theft Auto 5 is played among most of the players and Mildren has made it to the 4 star level already (I don't know what that means but the rest of the players were impressed). Also, Austin Melotakis (16th Rd 2011) and Lewis Thorpe (UFA 2013 Australia) introduced chew to Kia Tiger's pitchers J.Park and H.Lee and their reaction was priceless. It was one of disgust and repeated spitting much like my one and only time ever trying to dip. Of the players, Levi Michael and Kennys Vargas could not be nicer Anyone thinking of going to a Florida Instructional League game or camp, it is much more up and personal than anything else you can do in the minor leagues. Not many places can one go and be side by side with a Hall of Famer such as Paul Molitor with no fanfare as well as seeing future big league contributors. Also players reporting for the Arizona Fall League will show up for the Instructional League the week before they head out to Arizona to prep up. I'll be back at least once more before they close out for the year on the 8th of October. Sorry for all the comment breaks as I could only post 1 video per comment

When the pitchers finished with their sidework they joined the positional players for some defensive drills (mainly working on hitting the cutoff man, and positional coverage) which was led by Paul Molitor. Paul would call out game situations and used half the pitchers as baserunners while the other half as fielding pitchers. I can tell you Molitor still has a slick bat for an old man, hitting the ball at will to wherever he wanted with backspin, slice, etc; it was quite impressive. [video=youtube_share;6AA-rD36fQs]